Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number
nymag.com
The billionaire and his DOGE agents were reportedly granted full access to the Treasury’s federal payments system, and nobody knows to what end.

Summary

Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have been granted access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system, raising concerns about security and misuse.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved the move after a top Treasury official was ousted for resisting.

Critics warn Musk could freeze payments to government programs or manipulate federal contracts.

The move coincides with DOGE’s takeover of the Office of Personnel Management.

Experts call it a dangerous power grab, as Musk holds no official government position.

    • danA
      91·
      13 hours ago

      It’s weird that SSNs are treated as some sort of secret number given they don’t have any security features. They were never supposed to be used the way they’re used today, but there’s no good alternative yet.

      The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI (public key infrastructure) where you can generate new ID numbers based on a private key. Each bank, lender, employer, etc that needs it would get a unique ID that only works for them, and you could revoke access for just that one company if needed.

      Kinda like how OAuth/OIDC login works, where you can log in to sites using your Google account, Apple account, self-hosted Authentik or Authelia, etc. but the site you’re logging in to never sees your password. If a site/app misbehaves, you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working.

        • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          7·
          9 hours ago

          Here’s your ID. You can decide who gets to have it.

          Easy. The average person isn’t going to care about the nerdy shit behind it, any more than they care how Facebook works behind the scenes.

          • nomy@lemmy.zipEnglish
            8·
            9 hours ago

            They’ve been pushing against a national ID for decades so good luck convincing grandma it’s not the mark of the beast or something.

            • danA
              1·
              1 hour ago

              They’ve been pushing against a national ID

              But the USA is already using a (very poor) national ID - the SSN.

      • JayleneSlide@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 hours ago

        The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI… you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working

        There is already an open standard growing around exactly this concept, Web5 Distributed IDs (DID): https://dev.to/tbdevs/what-is-web5-233o

        Disclosure: I worked on the implementation for an Open Banking company (does that need to be disclosed? <shrug> I’m including it lest someone think I’m a shill)

        • danA
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Huh, TIL. Very interesting, thanks for the link!